


This Time (for sure)

by gyuuniku



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Attempted Murder, Emetophobia, M/M, Multiple Personalities, Post-Game(s), Pre-Game Oma Kokichi, Pre-Game Personalities (New Dangan Ronpa V3), Pre-Game Saihara Shuichi, Suicidal Ideation, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-06
Updated: 2018-09-06
Packaged: 2019-07-07 20:18:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15915525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gyuuniku/pseuds/gyuuniku
Summary: When Saihara wakes up, wakes up from a fictional world where all of his friends have died, he finds Ouma Kokichi on his knees, begging to be killed.-“Saihara-kun!” Ouma lifted his head when he heard his name being called, a mixture of tears and snot coating his surprised face. There were a few specks of blood on his cheek, clearly from Saihara dripping onto it, and they were vibrant, almost neon, against his pale skin. “I’m sorry!”The words were sickening at this point. Whoever this Ouma was, he was still Ouma, and Saihara never wanted to hear him apologize again.“I promise I’ll- I’ll-“ Saihara, through some form of maneuvering and sheer luck, managed to wrench his right arm free, and reach in the air toward Ouma, just before he disappeared out the door. Just as he had before. “I promise I’ll keep you alive, this time I promise!”This time he meant it.This time.





	This Time (for sure)

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Birthday Saihara Shuichi! I wish you happiness in whatever form you're in <3

“I’m so sorry, Saihara-kun!”

“You-“

“I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry! Please forgive me! P-Please!”

Two hands wrapped around Saihara’s ankles, gripping onto them fiercely and squeezing them until he thought he was going to lose circulation in his feet. The blubbering didn’t stop, continuing as the boy crawled toward him and placed his face against his dirty shoes.

What on Earth…?

“Ouma-kun, stop that!” Saihara attempted to step back, but Ouma clung to him tighter, his whole body shaking violently as his face remained hidden. He was sobbing between his apologies and pleas for forgiveness, barely intelligible as his mouth seemed to move before the words were ready.

“I never meant to- I w-would never, I never meant to-!”

“Don’t do that-!” Saihara managed to stumble backward and wrench his feet from beneath the other’s face, but that only caused it to smack against the ground and remain there, forehead pressed into the tile floor.

He was in an intense position of apology, still not meeting Saihara’s eyes as he remained hunched over the ground with his hands pressed flat against it. Saihara could barely believe what he was seeing, this person was surely Ouma Kokichi, wasn’t he? That purple hair turned up at the end, the vibrato of his voice, it was difficult to fake so perfectly. The only reasonable explanation was that this was Ouma Kokichi, in the flesh, groveling on the ground in front of him on his hands and knees.

But that fact in itself made it impossible to believe, there was no way this was Ouma Kokichi. Ouma would never take such a position, even as a joke, and the uncertainty that tainted his once determined, unwavering words sounded sick to Saihara’s ears. It was a cruel joke, a trick of the familiar, morbid world he was forced to accept.

Could it just be some sort of cosplay then…? Had he really not escaped?

His heart was thudding almost painfully in his ears as Ouma lifted his face, his wide, violet eyes filled with endless tears.

“Pl-lease, please believe me! I’m so sorry!”

That was Ouma’s face, his small nose and the slight down-turn of his eyes caused a confused, yet relieved bubble burst in Saihara’s heart. After everything, even after his body had been mangled by a slab of metal, after he had caused the death of those they considered friends, after he had been blamed for so much…

It was still Ouma.

He was alive.

He was alive. They were alive. Somehow, they had to all be alive then, didn’t they? Somewhere, even Akamatsu was-

“I-I couldn’t- That wasn’t what I meant when I- Uuu, Saihara-kun, I’m sorry!” Ouma hung his head and sobbed audibly, enough that his whole body was shaking with each cry that wracked his body.

Then why was he crying…?

“W-Wait, Ouma-kun, hold on a minute. Let’s just…” Saihara didn’t like this, this type of behavior from Ouma really unsettled him, and he couldn’t explain why. Something about it felt familiar, yet he knew even from the depths of his shallow understanding of Ouma that nothing like this had ever happened. Ouma had never looked so broken, even staring death in the face during the fictional days they shared together.

A nauseous feeling had begun growing in the pit of his stomach, spreading slowly as he tried to rationalize his surroundings.

“L-Let’s just calm down, okay? I’m- I’m confused too, I just woke up and you’re, well, I didn’t think you would be alive…” Saihara caught himself after his words, Ouma still crying as he spoke, “Oh, but I’m happy! I’m really glad you’re alive, Ouma-kun! This means… Doesn’t this mean everyone is alive, too?”

Saihara was partially asking himself, and the boy in front of him as well, the words barely loud enough to hear. He was afraid if he spoke too loudly it would make it all a lie.

When he had woken up, and pulled the headset off his head, his familiar-yet-unfamiliar school uniform sitting sticky on his body, the world was quiet. It was dark, and lukewarm, the room swimming with the black dots that clouded his vision after what felt like a year’s long sleep.

Holding his head, feeling the hat atop it, he stood, grabbing onto the frigid metal next to the bed to steady himself. It began rolling before it was too late, and he teetered away, realizing it was a medical stool stacked with various liquids and equipment. It slammed into the wall, spilling its contents to the floor, and all he could do was watch with baited breath.

Around him, machines whirred with half-life, in a sleep mode but still plugged in, various gurgles coming from their cables. The blinking of their neon lights illuminated the green tie on his chest, and he prayed for some sort of understanding.

It wasn’t until the door flew open, hitting the wall with a cacophonous bang, and the lights were forced on, that he was able to move as if he belonged in his body. He turned his head sharply, the brim of his hat only slightly shielding his vision, forcing him to push it up to see the doorway fully.

Ouma stood in it panting, sweat covering his face enough that Saihara could even notice it at the distance they stood from each other. The shoulders of his black uniform (one Saihara had _never_ seen before) were rising and falling with his heavy breaths, making him look simultaneously terrified and terrifying, unclear if he was running toward, from, or after something.

He had immediately closed the distance between them with a few steps, and fallen to the floor, grabbing onto Saihara’s ankles and beginning his slur of apologies.

None of it made sense, Saihara had no answers looking back at it now, but he was still trying to comfort Ouma, even in this situation. He placed a hand on his chest to feel how his heart was racing, but curled his fingers into the fabric to steady himself, looking down at the crying boy with soft eyes.

_‘He’s alive… he’s really alive. I’m so-‘_

“Y-You don’t have to pretend to not be angry, it’s okay! I deserve it, since I-“ Ouma looked up at him, seeming to flinch when he met Saihara’s eyes, and the other wasn’t sure why. “I ruined Danganronpa!”

‘ _… What?’_

“I tried to ruin Saihara-kun’s precious Danganronpa! I a-almost- I could have-“ Ouma watched the unreadable expression in Saihara’s eyes and felt the guilt in his body grow, wanting nothing more than to be punished for what he had done. “I never meant to ruin it! I thought playing a foil would be cool- I th-thought Saihara-kun was going to kill me and win! I never meant for them to make me- I never wanted to ruin it! Please believe me!”

“H-Hold on Ouma-kun… What are you…?” The nausea was climbing up his throat, Saihara knew what was going to happen, but he swallowed through the excess of saliva and tried to keep listening to Ouma.

“It’s my fault, I just wanted to make Saihara-kun’s Danganronpa the most memorable one. I-I just wanted… I wanted you to win, and keep winning, and live forever, Saihara-kun! I wanted you to kill me and win!” Ouma sat back on his legs and covered his face with his hands, half-screaming, half-crying into them as he spoke. “But… But my feelings couldn’t get through, they didn’t stay with me… The things I did, they were horrible! I tried so hard to ruin the thing Saihara-kun loves the most!”

_‘I wish I had died in real life,’_ Ouma didn’t say it, not wanting to cause too much pity on himself, as if he wasn’t pitiful enough. Saihara’s silence was deafening, and he could only fill the void of noise with his sloppy crying, rubbing his hands under his cheeks and chin as he tried to stop staining the floor with his worthless tears.

They were worthless, there was nothing he could do to apologize for what he had done. He had tried to outsmart the Mastermind, and he almost succeeded. If Saihara wasn’t so smart, then he could have really ruined the most treasured thing to his favorite human.

He deserved to be punished.

But Saihara wasn’t saying anything. His form was just towering over Ouma in eerie stillness, causing him to lower his hands and look past his tears up at his shadowed face.

It was repulsed.

“You disgust me,” Saihara said, his lip curled upward in revulsion.

Ouma inhaled sharply, but before he could do anything more, it was like something new pulled at Saihara’s face. The expression was gone, and in its place, was one of pure fear, a hand slamming over his once grimacing mouth as he lurched forward. There was a sick noise as his body retched, and Saihara turned away, running to the corner of the room as he curled in on himself.

“S-Saihara-kun?!” Ouma tried to push himself to his feet but he fell, landing backward with a jarring pain. Not wasting any time on the hurt, he tried to stand again, succeeding this time and chasing after Saihara to the dark corner.

Saihara had emptied the contents of his churning stomach on the floor, bile yellow and coating his brown loafers. He coughed to clear the rest from his throat, but the sick feeling of the words he had just uttered were burned into his mouth, not clearing with the thick spit heaving from his body.

Who had said that? It hadn’t been him, it wasn’t him at all. It was painful, like someone was shoving themselves inside of his body and taking up space that should have been filled with his blood and organs. He retched again, but nothing came out, his eyes wide as his body shook violently.

“D-Don’t come near me!” He managed to bark out once his vision returned, hearing Ouma stop only a few centimeters away behind him. Ouma had one hand raised in concern, but he backed away, knowing it wasn’t his right to touch Saihara right now.

That was right, he was still making up for his atrocious mistakes, he couldn’t lay a single hand on Saihara now. He may be making up for them for the rest of his life, but he knew he had to, he had to somehow!

But that wasn’t the reason Saihara had called out to stop him, not at all. He was actually scared of himself, petrified of what he was going to do to Ouma if the boy got any closer. He could continue to try and cough out the contents of his stomach, but he could never delete the feeling of that murderous rage from inside of him that he had felt saying those words.

If Ouma got any closer, he was really going to kill him. It wasn’t a thought, it was a fact.

Saihara rubbed his lips, but nothing changed, he still felt as if he was being torn in two. The fear and confusion warred against the malice and psychosis building stronger inside of him, sending his head into a dizzy spell that made him lean up against the wall. He closed his eyes, and the cool beads of sweat on his forehead between the brim of his hat were the last thing he remembered before he knew it was over. He couldn’t fight anymore.

_‘I’m so sorry, Ouma-kun.’_

Ouma pulled his hand into his chest as he put more distance between him and Saihara, watching the other’s lips twitch slightly as if he were trying to speak. When no sound came out, Ouma paused, one foot lifted backward as he watched the silent boy closely.

Saihara’s eyes opened, though narrowly, and his gold irises flashed toward Ouma, his pupils dilated and wide. The loathing was back in them, and Ouma flinched, holding his ground through the terror.

“Ouma-kun…” Saihara managed to push himself from the wall, his body still weak, making him stumble as he walked. He was stalking up to the boy, holding his arm across his body as he swayed back and forth with each step, his head hung low so his hat covered his face.

Ouma wished he could say he stood his ground, accepted whatever Saihara was coming to him for, but he was scared. Through his self-hatred he took another step backward, his white sneakers squeaking against the ground and giving away his betrayal.

“Stop,” Saihara ordered, and Ouma did, his shoulders lifting as he inhaled in surprise.

“S-Sorry, Saihara! You just really, really scared me. A-Are you okay, you were sick-“

“No, you’re right, I am sick…” Saihara bent down, his fingers wrapping around the cold object his eyes had caught sight of as they stay trained on the ground. Feeling the scalpel press into his grip, he lifted his head, standing up straight and glaring directly at the other.

“I’m sick of looking at your face. You don’t deserve to be alive…!” He lifted the sharp weapon into the air, glinting under the florescent lights, panting as he did.

Ouma disobeyed once again and began scrambling backward, a step each time Saihara took one forward, his large eyes growing with every movement. He was actually… Saihara was really going to…?

_‘Shit, I can’t hold on much longer. He’s coming back, he’s going to lock me away. But I’ll definitely… I’ll definitely kill this little rat! He tried to ruin Danganronpa! It’s his fault! Yeah, it’s all his fault it failed! It wasn’t me, I didn’t do anything wrong!’_ Saihara thought as he began to close the space between them quicker, digging his nails into his skin as if to punish his mind and keep it at bay as long as he could. _‘Do you hear that, traitor?! I’m going to kill this trash for ruining Danganronpa! And then we’ll fix it all!’_

Saihara was screaming inside of his own head.

He could see everything, but he couldn’t move. His limbs weren’t his own, he was stuck inside, watching a movie play out with his own body without any control. His vision was tunneled on Ouma’s terrified face, quivering each time it grew and grew in his gaze.

‘ _Run! Run, Ouma-kun! You have to run! I can’t stop him, I can’t stop-‘_ It wasn’t ‘him’, it was me.

His own self was doing this.

_‘Stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it…’_

 Saihara was useless again, like all those times before. Watching all of his friends die, as he stood to the side and couldn’t do anything to stop it. No matter how many times it happened, whether it was here, or there, Saihara was still useless.

He kicked and screamed, he pulled at what he thought was his own body, he did everything he could, but he was still stuck, watching as the effortless scenes melded together until Ouma was lifted off the floor and pressed against the wall, yelp echoing in Saihara’s head.

“You’re so pathetic, did you really think you could stop Danganronpa? After everything we did together…!” Saihara slammed him against the wall, the adrenaline and sheer hatred scrounging up a new strength, and Ouma remained oddly quiet, grappling at the wrist gripping onto his jacket, but doing nothing else to stop it. Almost like he accepted it, deep in his heart.

“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry, Saihara-kun! I’m s-“

“Shut up, just shut up!” It took Saihara a minute to realize he was crying himself, tears unusually cold on his face. “I trusted you, Ouma-kun! And you tried to ruin the only thing that makes me happy!”

The scalpel was lifting, and Saihara was floating still, stuck in his uselessness to change the situation.

‘ _Ouma-kun!’_

 Saihara outstretched his hand toward his view of the boy, and curled his fingers, feeling cold metal touch his skin. The world went from black, to white, to every faded color the boy knew, and then it was gone.

_‘I don’t want you to die. I should have told you before, but I never wanted you to die, more than anyone.’_

“Shit- They’re in here…!”

“How did he find what room he was in?”

“How did he find it?! How the hell did he get away from _you_?”

“The kid’s fast, he ran when we weren’t looking! The second we said the protagonist was awake, he just took off and no one could stop him-”

“Stop with the excuses- Hey, someone grab him!”

Saihara felt that same, cold metal against his neck, now accompanied by a liquid leaking between it. He was shivering, terrified at first that he was still stuck inside the chasm of his head, covered in the blood of his friend, but when he felt that shaking transfer to his limbs, he hesitantly began to open his eyes.

Was he really…?

“Put the knife down, Saihara! You’re not in the game anymore!”

The jarring sound of other voices shook the light back into his eyes, the pale wall of the room filling his sight and sending a roar through his ears, encompassing everything he could sense. The metal in his hands pressed harder into his skin, and he felt a sharp pain with it, causing the men to curse.

“It’s normal to be confused, but we promise you aren’t in any danger anymore... S-So just put the knife down on the ground, and calmly-“

“Please, stop him! Please!” Ouma was wiggling on the ground, attempting to stand, but caught before he could. “What are you-?! Stop, let go of me, go grab Saihara-kun! Stop him! Please!”

Ouma was dragged away across the room, two pairs of strong arms grabbing onto either one of his legs and sliding him across the ground. He pounded against the ground with his fists, and twisted his measly weight around, but couldn’t escape, being swept into their arms screaming.

“…Ouma-kun?” Saihara turned to look at him as he was scooped onto the shoulder of a burly man in a suit, tossed over it like a ragdoll. His head lifted immediately at the sound of his name, his eyes filled with relieved tears.

“S-Saihara-kun! I’m sorry, I’m sorry you couldn’t kill me! But please, don’t hurt yourself, I’ll let you kill me once we-“

“Shut it, no one is killing anyone. You aren’t in the game anymore.”

“I have to-! I have to or Saihara-kun is going to…!”

“N-No, I don’t want to, I would never kill you, Ouma-kun. Why would I…?” As he spoke, trying to get his feelings across through the haze engulfing his mind, he felt the pain in his neck double. Letting his eyes flicker down, he saw blood coating his hand, freshly trickling over his fingers as they gripped the scalpel firmly and pressed it against his own neck.

There was a burn in the back of his mind at this sight, a seething rage that flamed up inside of his mind. Like when he had pushed forward his true wish for Ouma to survive, the other-self inside of him was only begging for murder, screeching its profanities and desires until it formed into only a small fraction of his being.

But it wasn’t strong enough to take over Saihara, not like he had been strong enough to stop it.

“Just get him out of here,” another man ordered as he flicked his thumb toward the door. The lug carrying Ouma nodded, and began to move, heaving Ouma along with him as his heavy steps lumbered through the room’s tense air.

“W-Wait, what are you-? Stop, stop it! Put me down! Saihara-kun!” Ouma beat his hands against the man’s back to no avail, kicking his legs and screaming as the distance between him and Saihara grew.

“Wait, Ouma-kun-“ Saihara dropped the scalpel immediately, moving to chase after the captured boy, immediately causing his own securement. The men swarmed him promptly, each taking a hold of one of his arms and legs to make sure he could no longer access the sharp object, or anything else, to hurt himself. He struggled against the restraints as well, but even his slightly bigger frame was useless just as Ouma’s had been, his thin limbs thrashing in their strong grips.

“Saihara-kun!” Ouma lifted his head when he heard his name being called, a mixture of tears and snot coating his surprised face. There were a few specks of blood on his cheek, clearly from Saihara dripping onto it, and they were vibrant, almost neon, against his pale skin. “I’m sorry!”

The words were sickening at this point. Whoever this Ouma was, he was still Ouma, and Saihara never wanted to hear him apologize again.

“I promise I’ll- I’ll-“ Saihara, through some form of maneuvering and sheer luck, managed to wrench his right arm free, and reach in the air toward Ouma, just before he disappeared out the door. Just as he had before. “I promise I’ll keep you alive, this time I promise!”

This time he meant it.

_This time._

**Author's Note:**

> Is this an acceptable birthday gift...? I'm sorry, but this is the happiest ending I can manage to give, given the ending of V3 lol. Also you'll pry me writing pregame from my cold, dead body, and that wasn't an invitation you freaks.
> 
> Anyway, it's my boyfriends birthday!! Happy birthday Saihara!! You really deserve to be happy, and I don't think I can be the person to give that to you, given my proclivities, but I try my best.
> 
> Also, to those who follow my other pregame series, expect an update soon! Putting the finishing touches on it, in-between course work, so sorry if this wasn't the upload you were excited for. I hope it holds you over, though.
> 
> Thank you for reading, and if you enjoyed please leave some kudos and a comment, I respond to all of them and they keep me going!


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